Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

On Teachings and Teachers

With Martin Aylward recorded on March 17, 2018.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

People often ask about the importance (or not) of working closely with a teacher. One can benefit greatly from general meditation instruction, but personalised guidance from someone who knows you and your practice well can be deeply helpful.

In this session, Martin speaks about approaching teachers for guidance and about the dynamics of the teacher-student relationship; the promise, the potency, and the possible perils and pitfalls.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Brian Dean Williams

    Change the story, change your life

    We live our lives through stories – about the world, and about ourselves. You may have noticed these stories surfacing in awareness in your meditation practice. We often cling to these stories as being “true”, yet holding this wrong view conceals that these stories are impermanent, cause suffering, and ultimately, are not personal. In this…

    Read More

  • James Baraz

    Changing the Channel: Opening to Goodness

    The barrage of frightening headlines often leaves us with feelings of despair, hopelessness, and negativity. While it’s important to feel connected to the suffering all around us, it is equally important to nourish ourselves by opening to the goodness in life–both inside and around us. Our caring can then be held with more spaciousness and…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Leela Sarti – Week of 16 March, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Mystery of Being

    We often live entangled in memories, stories, and fixed images of ourselves and the world. We’re running behind, trying to catch up. We’re reacting rather than responding to life. Surely there is more to this earthly journey?
    The practice of sacred attention, of embodied awareness and presence, leads us to the mysterious ground of our nature.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Death is Before Me Today

    During this Sunday Sangha we will explore the peace of emptiness, the malleability of time and the loving care of oneself and all life.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of April 6

    We’re fortunate that Martin Aywlard has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Martin, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. View the text for the daily chants Martin offers this week Monday, April 6 Wednesday, April 8 Demands, defences…

    Read More

  • Willa Blythe Baker

    Loving Awareness: Finding Freedom Within

    “This thing person called “me”, the one who is sensing, thinking and perceiving right now….who or what is it? This is an age old question that the traditions of the East, especially Buddhism and Hinduism, have held as the heart of their traditions. The answer to that question, in some scriptures, is “awareness”, a part of us that is already wakeful, attentive, open, free and loving. In this Sunday teaching, we consider what it means to encounter awareness, and why it might be important, not only for our practice of meditation, but for the fulfilment of our life’s purpose.

    Read More